Information for 17707IIED

Building a global biocultural brand to support indigenous landscapes

Indigenous lands and territories are crucial to sustaining much of the world’s biodiversity and agrobiodiversity, and many of its ecosystem services. They are also key to climate change adaptation. Yet these agrobiodiversity-rich landscapes — and the communities who sustain them — receive very little support. To be sustainable, socioecological production landscapes such as biocultural heritage territories, cultural landscapes and indigenous conserved areas must also become economically viable. This requires developing culturally appropriate sources of income that protect interlinked biodiversity and cultural (biocultural) heritage. One solution is to develop a global brand for biocultural products and services, supported by indigenous labelling and certification. The labelling system should be designed and managed by indigenous peoples and easily accessible to them, with some independent verification to provide a guarantee of quality and authenticity for consumers.